IMPERIAL TRADE

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 20 November 1925, Page 5

IMPERIAL TRADE

CANADIANS’ ADVOCACY. BRITISH POLICY CRITICISED. link that Hinds the empire. BY CABLE —PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT. OTTAWA, Nov. 18. Characterising Britain’s free trade policy as a “cold-blooded and selfish doctrine,” the Hon. Bell Irving, a member of the Vancouver Board of Trade, in an addiess on Imperial trade •relations at the national economic conference at Winnipeg, attended by delegates from all the provinces, on Wednesday, warned his hearers against the dangers of “benevolent - aloofness.” He maintained that the policy should have been scrapped twenty-five years ago, and if persisted in it might wreck the Empire. He said that “Canada first and the Empire next” should bq the watchword of the Dominion. An appeal for trade within the Empire was also made by Mr W. E. Cocksliutt, of Ontario, an agricultural manufacturer, who said this was the best method of keeping the Empire together. He said every need which human ingenuity could suggest could be satisfied within the Empire. The Dominions, by helping Britain to bear the tremendous financial burdens under which she was tottering, would make “Uncle Sam sit up and take notice.”

The conference passed a resolution on Imperial tradei Relations, urging upon the Dominion Government the development of Imperial trade relations, emphasising that trade within the Empire should be the major objective of the Dominion Government, and that whatever steps may be necessary to promote the development of Empire trade should be taken by the Canadian Government. A resolution on colonisation and immigration urged the Federal Government to undertake the creation immediately of a non-political advisory board or commission on colonisation and agricultural development, composed of Canada’s leading experts on the subject and skilled business executives.

It was also urged that an early investigation be made of the feasibility of a great agricultural and colonisation forward movement, including a scheme of moderately assisted settlement, available to desirable agricultural settlers of European and American origin. The formation of a Dominion Board of Trade was agreed upon.